Wiens, Marie Klassen (1921-2009)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2009 Jun 8 p. 7

Birth date: 1921 Jul 9

text of obituary:

Former MCC worker, MWR writer dies at 87

By Mennonite Weekly Review staff

HILLSBORO, Kan. — Marie Wiens, a former Mennonite Central Committee worker in Europe and South America and a columnist for Mennonite Weekly Review, died May 23. She was 87.

Wiens and her husband, Frank, served with MCC in Germany from 1947 to 1948. They helped establish a feeding program in Ludwigshafen and turned a community center into a church for Mennonites in Heilbronn. They also helped Russian refugees secure visas to emigrate to Canada.

In 1949 the Wienses took an MCC assignment in Paraguay. They worked with refugee resettlement and economic development programs in several South American countries.

"I think not so much of the service we were privileged to give under MCC but rather the horizons which were opened to us," she wrote. "We saw poverty and injustice and people without a voice who had little of the Earth's resources and needed help."

The couple completed their overseas work in 1965 and moved to Hillsboro.

Continuing her service to the church, Wiens worked as a writer for Mennonite Brethren Missions/Services from 1970 to 1980.

From 1990 to 1998 she wrote a column for MWR on topics ranging from family life to church and world issues. She wrote book reviews in earlier years.

She also served on the MWR board of directors and on the boards of MCC binational and Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary.

Wiens was an avid walker and runner, winning more than 12 races, even after the age of 80.

She was born July 9, 1921, to Henry and Katherina (Fast) Klassen, in Rosenhof, Russia, a village in the Mennonite Slavgorod settlement in Siberia.

When her father's life was threatened by the Soviet authorities, the family escaped in 1929 across the frozen Amur River to China, where they lived for almost a year. In 1930 they were granted permission to emigrate to the United States and settled in Reedley, Calif.

She married Frank Wiens on Aug. 30, 1946, in Reedley. He died July 12, 2007.

Survivors include a son, Glenn of Wichita; three daughters, Rebecca Penner of Wichita, Marcia Wiens of Boulder, Colo., and Miriam Holmes of Louisville, Colo.; 10 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

The funeral was held at Hillsboro Mennonite Brethren Church, where she was a member.